Wednesday, December 30, 2015

So with the new year on the horizon I have got some big news. I will be taking on an exciting new job with a lot of new opportunities provided. This will however bring an end to my current S&W group that I have been running for about a year and a half. We stopped at a pretty good point and no one is terribly upset and every one is very happy for my chance to expand on my career.

With that said I am now focusing more of my creative energy on a fantasy based coop card game that it may never see the light of day beyond my play test prototype but should be fun non the less. It will be taking what I feel are the best aspects of adventure card games and expanding on it with my own take. Any one who wants to get into brainstorming ideas are welcome to ping me.

I will look to put together a new gaming group once I get settled in and have a better idea what my schedule will be like. I have several friendly local gaming shops that I want to spend more time at and get to know the players there better. I will also be continuing to create as much free OSR goodies as I can for all of you and perhaps even a book or two that i've been brewing may eventually get finished and available through lulu and drivethru.

So happy new year to every one in the OSR and here is to 2016, a year of change that I hope is good for every one.

Constructed in the likeness of dragons these machines of war tower over their foes breathing a line of molten steel 60ft long. Those who fail their save take 8 points of damage, then 4 damage again for the next 2 rounds as it burns its way through armor.

Created with speed and savagery in mind, the slash panther is incredibly fast capable of leaping onto prey and slaying it before they even knew it was there. If it hits with both claws it can automatically bite. Due to its hasted nature it can either attack 4 times with its claws in a flurry of slahes or go for the throat twice with its bite.

The leader of the forge sector and the most independent of thought of the thanes, Urabask is also the quickest to anger and does not tolerate nonsense. His temporal aura gives all allies in a 40ft radius haste while foes within the same radius must make a save or be under a slow spell (1/2 move and attack speed) while in the radius and 3 turns (30 minutes) after leaving.

Massive giants of metal and flesh the chancellors wade into combat with abandon. Unique is there ability to summon Converted goblins in front all allies within 10ft usable once per day. This allows them to create decoys or shock troops in the blink of an eye.

Furnace Scamps are nearly dog-like in form being about twice the size with a hard carapace of metal and a endless hunger for more metal. When facing a superior opponent they will latch on with their massive mouths and then explode in a roar of fire and metal dealing 1d10 damage(no save) and to all those who are in 10ft (save for half).

Natural berserkers the Ogre Menial goes into combat swinging hard with lead covered iron fists and a nasty bite. They can breath out a sickening oily smoke that causes all (friend and foe alike) in a 20ft radius centred on the ogre to make a save or become enraged (+2 to attack and damage, +2[-2] AC, unable to concentrate to cast spells or use ranged attack, must enter melee the nearest living creature) for 1d6 rounds. The ogre automatically fails this save and will automatically become enraged.

Slow moving they may be slag fiends are walking furnaces of annihilation. They devour everything organic or metal, constantly dripping burning slag and ash from their massive maws. Once every 4 rounds they can spew forth this ash in a 15 ft cone that deals 1d6 damage and those who fail their save are blinded for 1d4+1 rounds. When attacking with its chains if it hits with 2 or more of them the opponent must make a strength check (-2 str for each chain that hit to a max of -8) or automatically getting dragged into its furnace taking 2d6 damage a round. It will keep its maw clamped shut unless it takes 15+ damage in a single round of combat or some way of extinguishing its extreme flames is found.

Looking like extremely large mosquitoes the invader parasite is a plague to man and land. Those who suffer the bite of the invader parasite must make a save(+2 bonus) else they become petrified. When a group of 6 of these come together then can stick their proboscises into the ground and begin vibrating their wings at a rapid rate creating a sort of jack hammer effect. If this continues undisturbed for 3 turns(30 minutes) they create an effect equivalent to a earthquake spell.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Created to be a more effective shock trooper, the glacial shard skeleton is created during a blizzard, the terrible winds and freezing snow forming long, hard, and incredibly sharp spines and shards across its entire skeletal form. They roam the frozen wastelands in groups on a eternal duty to guard against the living until summoned by their master to wage terrible war.

Glacial Shard Skeletons: +1 HD, +2 AC, 2 claw attacks for 1d6+2 damage each. Those using unarmed and natural attacks take 1d4 damage from the razor sharp ice shards covering its body. On death it explodes in a volley of bone fragments and razor sharp shards of ice for 1d10 damage (save for half) in a 10ft radius.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

In the frozen wastelands of northern Aeril, Horgroth the ice baron has been toiling away searching for an artifact of devastating power that brought upon the never ending winter. Horgroth has developed over the years variations of the animation spells to infuse a corpse with negative energy and the harsh unforgiving nature of the arctic cold.

The rimetouched zombie is one such creation Horgroth has created and perfected a new hulking horror to stalk the cold barren wasteland. A rimetouched moves at a persistant march not extremely slow but also not quick, as if it knows it will eventually reach its intended prey. When they begin to close in for melee they will unleash its breath weapon, a terrible cone of rime infused frost that clings to the flesh doing 1d4 damage and requiring a save or be slowed as pre the spell for 1d4 turns(10-40 minutes). They can use this breath weapon 3 times a day. Once they reach their target a rimetouched will batter its target with its heavy ice covered fists.

Rimetouched Zombie:
Same as a regular zombie short of the following changes below.

+1 HD
Fists do 1d8 +1d4 cold or breath weapon (a cone of frost that does 1d4 damage and save or be slowed as per the spell for 1d4 turns)

Monday, December 14, 2015

When we last left off the party had just lost the barbarian due to a unfortunate side effect of having ones skull smashed in with a large war club wielded by a gnoll warrior. The group brought his corpse back to the city and left him with the morgue at the temple in the hopes of seeing if they could raise him in the morning. The party awakes and heads down to say goodbye to the druid who has had enough adventuring for a while with the group and wishes to return to life at sea. The group then does a quick check and notices the assassin is gone and so is the flaming sword they found. With no way of reliably tracking him at this time they decide to let it go as they had quite a few things on the agenda that required their attention first.

An old soldier over heard they had made it to the castle and returned. He tells them that he served in the army many decades ago and helped fight off the barbarian invaders. It was believed that the fighter Roghan and wizard Zelligar had buildt the castle as a bastion to prevent further incursions by the barbarian hordes as well as central hub for their adventuring into the wilds in search of a temple holding a long lost artifact of some previous lost god. They did not want some strange terrible artifact getting in the hands of those who would destroy the growing kingdom. No one has seen either of them in over 30 years but it is believed they continued their quest for this artifact and that it may not be too far from the castle they buildt long ago. The group considered the old soldiers story and would look into further in the future.

Before they could get going they however ran into the brother of the fallen dwarf who was traveling with them who died gruesomely at the fangs of a giant spider, and a wandering elven bard who seemed intrigued by their current exploits and wished to join then in their adventures.They went to the temple of Heironeous and met with the high priest, Farn. The priest told them that a miracle of the kind they requested was no small order and where they had never stopped in to the church before now it would require a tithe of 1,000 GP and 300 SP. The group did not quite have this much and looked to their new found silver tongued bard to work out a more reasonable deal. He was able to broker them a deal down to 500GP, 300 SP, and a favor to the church. Farn agreed but to prevent these unknowns from accepting a blessing from the church and not fulfilling their agreement requested they willingly submit to a quest spell to see to it that the archpaladin's will be done. The bard and dwarf only having just met the group and having never even met the barbarian requested that they be left out of this agreement so long as the rest of the group agreed.

Farn indeed felt this was fair, prepared the ritual to bring back their dead friend (who came back to life with 1 less CON), and then proceeded with the quest upon them. There is a old graveyard that has became a target for undead and grave robbers in which they have now been tasked of cleansing in the name of the church. The wolf then collapses nearly on his last legs nearing his last day until his advanced lyme disease takes him and seeing as he would not be able to server the lord of justice in this capacity received healing of his malady free of charge.

The group wanted to see before they went to the graveyard if the mages guild made any headway into reversing the rogues condition from a wolf. The great Jodah and they believe one of their senior members of the guild may be able to dispel the enchantment placed on him. He casts his spell and feels that a curse has been lifted, but not the one that has him changed into a wolf, but the one that changed his alignment nearly a year ago. It is now obvious that only some one or something with strong ties to the natural order can possibly reverse his transformation.

Afterwards they head over to the Aerie of the knights of the wyvern to see if any of the knights had returned. Five of the knights are discussing another portal that had just opened up a a monstrosity made up of multiple heads on long necks but have no faces just nasty maws and a body covered in sickly green skin and metal. The group decides to go with them to stop this thing from destroying a small hamlet to the north. They meet it in battle on the open planes a few miles away from the hamlet and unleash all their ranged attacked and the wyverns deliver some devastating attacks upon it. It becomes apparent that some of the wounds are not as grievous as they first look but the terrible bite attacks of the wyverns and the additional support of the party from afar bring the beast down and it dissolves into a pool of black oily ichor. The wyverns, whose mouths are now stained black by the oil, and their riders head back to the city and they prepare to head to the cemetery.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Today I am preparing for the holidays by expanding the northern arctic section of my campaign. The frozen north is a terrifying place and the undead found there are a bit different then found any where else in the world. So with out further ado I give you the frost ghoul.

Frost Ghoul; Unlike their more common brethren, Frost Ghouls do not deliver a paralysing touch but deliver a icy cold frost bite(save or limb becomes frostbitten). A frost bitten body part becomes essentially paralysed turning black, purple, and numb. If untreated the body part becomes gangrenous and falls off in 1d4+3 days or in the case of a torso wound, death from infection. A cure disease spell will remove frostbite/gangrene. Elves are not immune to this frostbite.

Bite location(D8)

1: Left Arm2: Right Arm3: Left Hand4: Right Hand5: Left Leg6: Right Leg7: Torso8: Face

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

So when we last left off the group had been following their newly charmed kobald pal, Belkin, further into the castle to retrieve a sword his tribe found but never dared to take. The party along the way decided they wanted to check every room and door they came across to check for additional loot or to maybe per-emptivaly strike at any monsters that may try to sneak up on them later. This did annoy Belkin some as he was trying to lead them and they would start to wander off including finding a crystal cave like room that really threw their map to the wind. They eventually figured out the trick to the room and decided to follow Belkin to the sword.

What they found was an old smith shop, most likely used by who ever used to live here to create additional iron hinges, rods, nails, etc. It had not been used in a long time but right smack in the center was what they was promised, a very large anvil with a beautifully crafted short sword with golden lion faces on the hilt with a silvered blade and a large deep red ruby on the pommel. The cleric went over and checked to see if anything was amiss but did not find anything so he tried to take the sword. His hand touched the hilt with no issue but when he tried to remove his hand he found it was stuck. The group thinking it might be some sort of trick waited a moment to see if he could free himself, which is when the anvil's rounded edge used for shaping extended out into a club like appendage and smashed itself across the clerics face.

The group fearing they too might get stuck went at it with ranged and long reach weapons while the cleric tried in vane to free his hand as he kept taking solid (2d6) clubbings to the head. Eventually the barbarian had enough and brought down his battle axe splitting the anvil creature (a mimic) into a pool of silverly colored blood and leaving behind the sword.

The barb grabbed the sword as his prize and found it amazing that the blade burst into flame! They thought about spending another night in the castle to recharge but Belkin begged them not to as he and his tribe never stayed the night in the upper part of the castle as any number of terrible things could get him in his sleep. They thought about it and decided he had a point and they wasnt too far away from Belltaine not to return so they took a quick pit stop over at the storage room from their first visit to collect some of the ale for the inn keeper and headed back.

On the way back a group of 4 gnolls came up on the party, both groups surprising the other. The barb drew his battle axe and the newly claimed flaming lions sword and prepped for battle. The gnolls seeing the flaming sword and that while the party out numbered them close about 2 to 1 they was fresh and ready to fight and this pack of travelers already looked beaten, bloody, and soon that flaming sword will be theirs. Each of them was wielding big heavy war clubs (1d10) and they all ganged up on the barb. The party went first but it was a calamity of the errors. The barb couldnt hit the broad side of the barn, same with the majority of the group. The mage tripped over himself and smashed his face into the ground stunning himself for 2 turns. The cleric went to swing his morning star and it slipped from his grip and flew over his shoulder 9ft behind him. The wolf rogue and guard dog both just barely missed their marks as well as the charmed henchlings and druid. The gnolls went to work 2 of them getting some solid hits into the barb with their clubs. Next round starts and things look up for them as the assassin stabs one from behind for double damage but just barely keeps from killing it. The cleric uses a sling and hits one in the head with a rock. The charmed orc hits with his spear and the barb strikes with the flaming sword slaying one of his tormentors. Still not wanting to give up and having seen the big half orc bleed they are determined to take him out and possibly cause the rest of the group to surrender. They go all in swinging with their clubs with only one of them missing the other 2 hitting their marks the first causing him to double forward and the second caving his skull in with a mighty (9 damage) swing killing him (-4 hp).

The group as always seeks to avenge their friend and the guard dog leaps onto one of the gnolls that scored the final blows and drove it to the ground mauling it to death while the wolf bit one of the others in a unpleasent area ;) and caused it to die from system shock. The last gnoll some how survives this round and decides if he is going to die he aint going alone and swings for the mage, missing his mark by inches and shattered his club on the ground. The mage rolled for his attack with his jeweled dagger (+1) and scored a natural twenty and got triple damage, sticking his blade right above the voicebox and twisted the blade slaying the final foe. They collect their friend and travel the rest of the way to Belltaine where they are going to see if resurrection is a possibility or if they will have to have a funeral ceremony for their departed friend.

About Me

I have been gaming off and on for close to 17 years now mostly playing D&D 3.0/3.5 with a little pathfinder and the occasional GURPS game here and there. Since finding my calling in the OSR with Swords & Wizardry I am looking to give back to the gaming community which has brought me many years of joy.
My other hobbies include collecting and playing retro gaming systems & games (which was new when I was a kid) and ham radio.